Revision as of 22:48, 15 July 2012

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Information

From Merriam Webster, a blog (short for Weblog) is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer; also : the contents of such a site."

“a web application that contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common

web page” (“Weblog”)

a website organized chronologically

a journal that is available on the web

an online diary or frequently updated personal webpage

a frequent chronological publication of personal thoughts and web links

Success Stories

Don't Just Blog - Blog It To Courseware

Here's an idea for academic libraries that have or are considering a library blog. A library blog can be a great marketing tool, but only if students read it, and my research shows that most students will not voluntarily subscribe to a library blog - and many are not yet familiar with the necessary technology tools to allow that. Instead, take advantage of technology that lets you push your blog postings to your campus courseware. That way, whenever students go to their course sites, which they do frequently, they'll see your library blog postings. You can get more information about the technology that allows this, and some findings from an informal research study that gathered data on student use of an academic library blog and student knowledge of blogs, RSS and aggregators. This information comes from a poster session conducted at the 2005 ALA conference. The handout from the session and the poster - which will provide all the information you need to replicate this idea - can be found at:
[1] - just scroll down to the presentations area - and look for the links to the ALA 2005 poster session material.

Using Blogs in Secondary Schools:
High school libraries should educate teachers and students about using blogs in the classroom. With the explosion of sites such as MySpace, many students are blogging. Educators should be aware of the rising popularity of blogs and use it to their advantage. In return, if school librarians educate students and teachers on blogging, it will increase the students' and teachers' awareness of the library and its usefullness. After teaching classes on blogging, school librarians should be prepared to provide teachers with examples of how to incorporate this technology into the classroom. This collaboration is vital to making the school library an important part of any high school. Some ideas for using blogs in the classroom can be found at: http://classblogging.blogspot.com/; http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/techlp/techlp055.shtml; http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/blogging-lesson-plan/. Another fabulous blog is : http://librarygoddess.blogspot.com/ which is a high school librarian [in New Jersery] who reviews books written for, or appropriate for, teens. (This website was obtained from the article Clyde, L.A. (2005). Educational blogging [Electronic version]. Teacher Librarian. 32(3), pp. 43-45. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from Wilson Web Omnifile database.) These are only a very few ideas that can be found on the Internet. Blogging is a part of students' lives. It is now up to librarians and teachers to make it a part of their education.